Oh dear. I'm very aware it's been over a month (!) since my last post; quite shameful. Unfortunately I seem to have had a run of bad news, and blogging has fallen by the wayside.
However I'm back to try and redeem myself, and to share some of my latest cakes. These were garden/gardening themed cupcakes in honour of someone very special to me, and they are just oh so cute. There was sadly one or two casualties with my toppers (sunflower petals and carrot leaves falling off), but I was really pleased with the ones that made it.
Here is a picture of some of the toppers halfway through progress...
The spades were the hardest to make, and to get the silver 'metal' half to stick to the brown 'wooden' half. I also would have preferred a lighter silver colour for them, but this glittery grey was all I could get my hands on. I still love them.
My favourites were the sunflowers; sunflowers hold a lot of happy childhood memories for me, and these toppers were so easy to make, yet so pretty.
I wish my bad photography did them justice! I used a small PME daisy plunger cutter, and cut flowers from yellow fondant, then coloured the remaining yellow with a tiny bit of orange colouring paste, then cut flowers from that. I layered the orange tinted flowers with the yellow on top. Then just a tiny dark brown circle for the centre, which I pricked with a cocktail stick several times to give the impression of the sunflower seeds.
The finished cupcake looked lovely.
For some reason I can't get my photo of the full lot of finished cupcakes to load, but here's a few individuals. There were also tiny apples and pears...
And mini carrots...
Alongside the roses and the spades.
I also seem to have a constant gripe with cupcake/muffin cases. First it was the foil case catastrophe. These latest ones I tried out seemed to sort of...stretch out when I took them out of the packet and put them in the muffin tray. Instead of neatly sitting in the muffin tray, then seemed to expand, and the creases unfold of their own accord. It was really irritating because when I then went on the pour the cake mixture in, the cases folded in on themselves - not a good look, difficult to pipe on the top of the cupcake, and leaves a funny shape. Please someone recommend some good muffin cases!
And lastly I have a happy new addition to my kitchen, which I am really loving so far...
It's a lovely little Kenwood mixer. Now I know it's no Kitchen Aid, but there is an economic downturn don't you know!
I promise to try not to leave it so long between posts next time :)
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